Posted by Brian Mahoney, Vice President – Ticket Sales

As electronic entertainment choices proliferate and a generation of people cuts off access to traditional broadcast television entirely, it seemed time to look at the usage of YouTube and television streaming services on the web by Telecharge Broadway ticket buyers (are the Today show and GMA streamed on line? How will customers see our TV spots?).

At one time it seemed improbable to use the word “YouTube” and Broadway ticket buyer in the same sentence but times are changing. The answers vary a bit by geography and certainly by age but the overall number is significant: 75% of respondents said they have used YouTube, with out of town customers saying yes more than NYC or suburban residents (75% versus 70%). Not surprisingly the Wednesday Matinee customers dragged down the average with positive responses closer to 65%.

Before everyone gets too excited, the devil is in the details.

We asked those who answered yes to tell us their frequency of use of YouTube. The good news is 26% said a few times a week and 10% said at least once a day. The other 64% reported less frequent usage. The largest group of responses (29%) came from those who said a few times a month with 24% saying only when someone tells me to look at a video. The final 9% said rarely. Similar to the pattern of social media usage, in the categories of heavier usage suburban customers lagged NYC and out of town customers, and more of them said they only look at YouTube when someone tells them to look at a video.

But there is more:

Surprisingly the average age of those who said they had used YouTube was older – yes OLDER – than the average of a Telecharge Broadway buyer, musical or play. Why? Probably because they had seen more shows. The average age of the Telecharge Broadway buyer is 52 (55 for plays) while the average age of those who said they had used YouTube was 56. The average number of shows (in their lifetime on our file) for the yes group was 10 versus 5 for the average Telecharge Broadway buyer (4 for plays). Those who said no were a few years older and had seen on average even more shows than the yes group.

Watching Television streaming on the web.

Are you are a glass half full or glass half empty person? 40% of Telecharge ticket buyers reported being a regular watcher of Television on the web using a streaming service (e.g. Roku, Hulu, Netflix) (so 60% are not). As we have seen with other questions, the suburban audience lagged the NYC and out of town customers, 37% in the suburbs as opposed to 40% elsewhere.

The average age for those who reported they were a regular watcher of television on the web using a streaming service was almost the same as the Broadway average. Of course many of the people who said yes to the YouTube question upon further examination were only occasional users (rarely, to only when someone tells me to look at a video, to a few times a month). The average number of shows in their Telecharge purchase history was similarly close to the Broadway average: 8 for streaming television users versus 10 for Broadway multi-buyers.

Where does this leave us? 36% use YouTube and 40% use streaming television services regularly.

I enjoy streamed references to shows that are posted on Facebook, there was a very fun webcast where the main character of Gentleman's GT Love and Murder wore a head camera during a performance and they streamed it on FB. Was very fun to watch and also made me want to see the show a 3rd time!